


Eros

by Kikimay



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikimay/pseuds/Kikimay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith and Buffy as lovers. A relationship dynamics study, with sex and exotic places involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been in Vietnam so I can't guarantee for realistic descriptions, but I loved the idea of Buffy and Faith in a foreign and exotic country. Plus after Chosen Buffy travels the world.
> 
> Translation from the Italian original version. Unbetaed.

  
  
The demon’s corpse was laying on the ground. A deep wound curving the irregular shape of his back and breaking him in the middle. The weapon – a sting on his forehead – was dissolving in a cloud of turquoise steam.   
  
Faith bit her lips, disgusted. An unbearable stench was tainting the air.  
  
Cursing for the blood on her new black boots, the Slayer leaned against a brick wall and admired her deadly work of art lighting up a cigarette. The first breath of smoke was sweet and soul saving.  
  
She closed her eyes and loosened the grip on the Scythe, then unbuttoned her linen blouse. Living in the East had major disadvantages in terms of climate. Monsoon rains and warm afternoons were exhausting for the visitors.   
  
The Slayer threw the cigarette on the ground and walked down the main streets full of shops and restaurants. Everything in the damn country smelled of rice.   
  
“I’m gonna be crazy,” she reminded herself with a bitter grin.  
  
Her motel was close. She stopped to buy rice cakes for dinner.  
  
Killing always made her hungry.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Faith closed the bedroom door behind her and begun to undress. She felt her skin pickling with sweat and red from the bites of thousand mosquitoes.   
  
“Shit,” she whispered, biting her bottom lip.  
  
The room was dark and quiet. Buffy was sleeping in a bed surrounded by tanks filled with ice and cold water. Every window was sealed with a mosquito net and a camping lamp was always lit to avoid insects’ bites.  
  
Despite all the precautions Faith was hundred percent sure of her future hospitalization. She always had bad luck, after all.  
  
“You came back …” Buffy hissed stretching.  
  
Faith swore under her breath. She kicked away her boots and lay down between the sheets touching Buffy’s back. She was gummy with sweat, her long hair shining in the dark and her thin silky nightie raised upon her nude legs.   
  
“The demon is now traveling in the land of the dead,” Faith said. “It was five by five.”  
  
“Was it that easy?” Buffy asked.  
  
“Oh, you know. I’ve seen worse.”  
  
“I wanted to be with you. I would have enjoyed a good hunt. Instead I had to stay here. I’m bored.”   
  
Faith didn’t reply. She observed her lover’s profile, so graceful and sensual.  
  
“Shower?” she offered quietly.  
  
“God yes!”   
  
  
  
  
  
  
They were taking fifteen showers per day. Spoiled occidentals, they would never become accustomed to Vietnamese heat. They would never learned how to spare precious water.  
  
“I talked with Willow,” Buffy said, adjusting the shampoo bottles inside the shower.   
  
She was naked, her hair picked up in her usual style. Faith watched languidly the curve of her neck.  
  
“What did she said?” she asked.   
  
Buffy smiled. “That she’s happy and strong. And more powerful.”  
  
“God save the Queen!” Faith chanted, stripping from pants and panties, approaching a Buffy too busy in the regulation of the water temperature. “I don’t understand why you can’t let the water just cold. It’s fucking hot here!”  
  
“Stop it! You always need to warm it up a little anyway.”  
  
Skeptic, Faith filled her hand with gel and began to massage her lover’s contracted shoulders.  
  
She loved Buffy’s skin, so soft and lithe, always smelling sweet even without creams or soaps. Thanks to a spell she had touched it in the relaxing warmth of a hot bath. Thanks to some kind of miracle she had been allowed to touch it again every night. The secret desire of her adolescence had been fulfilled. A dark desire, full of resentment and pain.   
  
“… And he told me to come back soon.”  
  
“What?” Faith asked distracted.  
  
“He wants me back,”  
  
“Willow?”  
  
“Xander!” Buffy replied. “You haven’t heard a word of what I just said, haven’t you?”  
  
Faith, bad liar, shook her head.  
  
“I knew it. Wait … you’re covered in blood.”  
  
Faith turned a bit to allow Buffy to take away of her back the disgusting bodily fluids of the demon. She sighed when Buffy’s hands touched her breasts with a vaguely erotic intent. The Chosen One turned again.  
  
“So back in America …” Faith murmured slightly disappointed.  
  
“Who said so?”  
  
“Your precious Scooby Gang just called you. What are you gonna do?”  
  
Buffy didn’t answer. She bit her lip and let down her hair.  
  
“Help me wash it, c’mon.”  
  
  
  
  
  
After the shower the Slayers went back to bed.  
  
Buffy opened the drawer to put some clothes on. Faith changed her mind with a convincing grin. They lay on the mattress and drove away the sheets. Faith opened the envelope full with rice cakes and they dined in silence. Outside their room the relentless buzz of the city.  
  
The dark Slayer crouched on her lover’s belly demanding caresses like a baby. Unsatisfied she began to tease Buffy, pinching her breasts and touching her abdomen. Between a laugh and a angry groan, she spread her lover legs beneath her and clenched her tiny wrists. It was a power play that Buffy could easily subvert. Faith licked her neck, her sharp clavicles and her shaking breasts, tickling her skin with her soft hair.  
  
“I saw her yesterday,”  
  
“What are you talking about, Faith? Come on, for God’s sake …”  
  
“I saw her at the temple. _Satsu_.”  
  
Buffy held her breath and looked her lover’s face. Faith's eyes were shining with a frightening burning light.  
  
“I felt jealous,” she said. “I realized that she is beautiful and graceful like you. I hated her and desired her at the same time.”  
  
“I don’t want to hear this …”  
  
“I wanted to squeeze her,” Faith continued kissing the gentle curve of Buffy’s breast. “And see if she smells like you, if her lips are soft as yours. Sometimes I wish that you had never been touched. Sometimes I wish to know that you can’t even breathe without me.”  
  
The grip on Buffy’s wrists became more violent for a moment and suddenly less strong. Trembling. “I wish to take your breath away,” Faith whispered.  
  
Buffy subverted their positions and punished her lover with the same passionate kisses.   
  
“You’re the same jealous little girl,” she murmured, biting Faith’s thigh.  
  
“And you’re always the one who gets everything. Everything,” Faith replied, sighing for pleasure. “Now you want me.”  
  
Buffy pushed her fingers inside her and felt her tremble and shiver. She kissed Faith’s face, her hot flushed cheeks and the swollen eyes. She arched and buried her nose in the crook of Faith's neck. The dark Slayers groaned and bit back a hoarse scream. Buffy kissed her again, tenderly this time.  
  
“I wish you’d feel the way I do,” Faith gasped. “ _I wish you couldn’t breathe without me._ ”  
  
Buffy said nothing.  
  
She closed her eyes upon Faith’s hair. It smelled of roses.  



	2. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation from the Italian original version. Unbetaed.

  
  
_Love is a banquet on which we feed_  
  
  
  
  
  
Faith opened her eyes and realized that she was alone in the empty bed. As usual, Buffy reserved nice surprises in the morning. She never let herself be lazy and enjoy the pleasure of a shared awakening. She tried so hard to be never found unprepared to her lover’s touch. Always on alert, the Chosen One.  
  
Not that Faith minded, of course. She wasn’t a pain in the ass and she would never do the distraught wife act. Buffy was free to leave when she fucking wanted. She wore no rings, didn’t make any false promises and she never asked for anything. That was acting as an adult in an adult relationship. Faith just had to reminded it to herself sometimes, especially when the excesses of jealousy clouded her judgment and she felt Buffy once again the distant rival, the model to be envied and the beloved sweet schoolgirl.  
  
 _Miss goody two shoes._  
  
Faith used to laugh at the thought of the eighteen years old girl who almost sent her to hell. She used to laugh, when she could thought about the past with a light heart.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Awake and already bored, Faith got out of the bed and headed to the shower.   
  
During the night the temperature had dropped slightly cooling the air. For the first time in weeks, her sleep was completely relaxing, smelling of the loving body next her own. Faith couldn’t help but feel relieved. Especially since she and Buffy had returned to the house on the hills, isolated and peaceful, on the east side of the Mekong. The river had to have a soothing effect.   
  
They spent two pleasant weeks and Buffy had allowed herself to be more present and, at least, to come back home every night for dinner. Clearly the peace was about to end. The return to the States was getting closer and closer.   
  
Without drying her hair, Faith walked into the kitchen. Somebody was talking to someone else. It was Buffy, chatting with the Vietnamese maid and in Americanized French. Very Americanized.   
  
She had been to the grocery store and on the table there were envelopes filled with all kinds of fruit. Faith took a slice of watermelon for herself.   
  
The maid disappeared.  
  
“Good morning to you, B,” Faith greeted with a full mouth.  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes and took away the fruit.  
  
“Hey! I thought it was for me!”  
  
“It’s for tonight! I invited the girls to join us.”  
  
The sad goodbyes had to be closer than she expected if Buffy wanted to make healthy pseudo-familiar parties.   
  
“Are you ready to say goodbye to your _babies_?” Faith asked.  
  
Buffy shook her head. “I don’t understand why I should say goodbye to them. Also _they aren’t my babies._ ”  
  
“Of course. Keep telling that to yourself, B! I saw your proud mama frown when they are training. Maybe you’re just happy that you’ve found cute and prepared girls who don’t hit their own feet with the axes. But I’d say that you’re quite attached. You have something of the mama bear type …”  
  
“They are just smart slayers! What’s wrong in appreciating their job? Also please remember that you’re the ‘fun mom’, I’m more like the pain in the ass strict stepmother.”  
  
Faith laughed. She walked over her partner and stole another slice of watermelon. “Are you ready to leave?” she asked again.  
  
“Who said that we are leaving?”  
  
“It’ll happen, it’s inevitable. Besides I don’t think you’re wanna rot in the middle of nowhere. I know you. You’re ready to go back to L.A. A quiet withdrawn life doesn’t suit you.”  
  
Buffy bit her lip thoughtfully. “Of course I want to go home. Eventually,” she firmly stated before walking away. “Puts some clothes on. We have a lot to prepare.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Over the hills, beyond trees and flowers, the river was flowing.   
  
Faith was staring at the moving water.   
  
Sitting on the floor, barefoot and with wet hair, enjoying the cool breeze on her face. Buffy’s steps broke the silence.  
  
“What are you doing sitting here?”  
  
“I’m fucking.”  
  
Buffy sat down behind her. “Classy as usual,” she replied quietly.  
  
“I’m a princess. What can you do?”  
  
“You used this joke a couple of times now.”  
  
Faith closed her eyes and sighed. Buffy’s scent was sweet, peaches and apricots. She loved to smell her in the air, between the bed sheets, on the weapons. It made everything more real, the scent of her skin.  
  
“Will you help me later with the desserts?”  
  
“Why don’t you just let the maid do her job?”  
  
“I wasn’t allowed to get close to the fish.”  
  
Faith smiled, eyes still closed. She felt a little finger on her hair, then another one and another one. Buffy had taken a brush to comb her hair. From time to time she loved to treat Faith as a doll or a younger sister.  
  
“If we’ll go back in the States …”  
  
Faith opened her eyes.  
  
“If we go back,” Buffy started to say. “Would you like the settle down in Los Angeles?”  
  
“Why are you asking me? As if my opinion matters. We’re moving to some damn city with some damn hellmouth or something under an high school building. I’ll follow you and you’ll be a good Chosen One, leading the holy ranks into the sacred mission,”  
  
“Are you being funny now?”   
  
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? We both know that in the end it won’t be our choice. So who gives a fuck. I’m okay with any hole in the ground, except for that crap in Cleveland. If we go back there I’ll shoot myself, B. You’ll have to pick up pieces of my brain from the carpets on the living room.”  
  
Buffy giggled. Her hands slightly trembled. “This will never change. You’ll accept our destiny better than me.”  
  
“We are Slayers, girlfriend. We don’t lose time behind mortgages and bureaucratic bullshit.”  
  
“But I did. When it was necessary, I did. And, you know, I still do. A part of me will never get used to life without some fixed points. I still have the secret hope to wake up one day as a normal gal. I can’t forget all those years when I was just that.”  
  
Faith licked her lips. “I never was a normal girl.”  
  
The conversation ended.   
  
Buffy put down the brush and started massaging Faith’s scalp before burying her nose into the wet hair. She breathed hard.  



	3. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed. Translation from the Italian. 
> 
> This time I'm not completely sure about the verbs at some point - hypotetical future - but I hope I got them right. 
> 
> Also some kind of dubious consent scene. It's not actually about dub-con, it's more like Buffy's strong reaction to something. I hope I did justice to the character and that the scene doesn't feel too much creepy. A little bit of darkness feels right for Faith and Buffy.

  
2 .  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The dinner with the young slayers ended later. It was boisterous and family-like. An opportunity for Faith and Buffy who generally met the girls in the field or at training.   
  
Buffy was brilliant and funny. Her inflexible leader was aura totally forgotten and she seemed a simple girl struggling with rice alcohol. Faith teased her all the time, joking about her poor tolerance to liquor.  
  
They ended up alone around 2 a.m., when the sky cleared away the dark clouds and the moon peeped out. Within half an hour they managed to decently tidy up the kitchen and living room. They turned the lights off, exhausted, and headed into the bedroom.  
  
Faith preceded Buffy. She gallantly opened the door for her.  
  
“To what do I owe this honor?” Buffy laughed turning to face Faith.   
  
She eloquently pushed her against the wall. “Let’s say it’s preliminary,” he jested pulling away Buffy’s silk scarf. Under the thin fabric the white skin adorned with two gold necklaces.   
  
Faith kissed the jugular line and gently removed the jewelry, getting a satisfied moan from her lover. Buffy pulled her in a passionate kiss. She smiled.  
  
“I knew you weren’t tired at all,”  
  
“I have a good resistance.”  
  
Faith grinned and began to remove Buffy’s dark dress, devoting herself to kiss every inch of skin slowly revealed, filling her hands with her lover’s small breasts.   
  
Buffy ruffled her hair and untied her own. She forced Faith to retreat in the direction of the bed and sat astride her who was stretching to strip and remove the bra. She generously kissed her soft curves and pulled off the pants.  
  
Faith stroked her face and forced her lover to look at her. Then she stared intently, silently for a moment. She laughed.   
  
She pushed Buffy against the pillows, hugging and kissing her hungrily. Her movements became frantic, almost violent. Once again Faith felt dominated by her desire to possess Buffy, the obsession that accompanied her during her teen years. The obsession for a woman both unattainable and beloved. The one who obtained everything, including the exclusive attention of her rival.  
  
Buffy gasped and clutched her arms opening her bright green eyes. She slid a hand between their intertwined bodies but she was stopped.  
  
“Wait, B. Let me do it.”  
  
Faith regained control. She stretched Buffy’s arms above her, silently telling her to grab the headboard and pulled out from the bedside table a pair of handcuffs. She grinned mischievously at her lover who was holding her breath.  
  
“You can break them, you know?”  
  
“I know,” she replied, suddenly serious. Slightly scared. “I know,” she repeated offering her wrists.  
  
Faith secured them to the headboard and bent down to kiss her.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” she said, mapping her skinny body, so sweaty and tender. “And you’re mine now. _You’re mine,_ ” she added almost in amazement.   
  
She languidly stroked the line from the chin to Buffy’s navel, to her smooth abdomen. The Chosen One leaned forward, energetically and biting her full lips.  
  
“Say that you’re mine,” Faith ordered, trembling with passion. “Say it once at least! I love you. Do you feel the same?”  
  
Buffy tensed. She forced her grip on the handcuffs and hid her face on the pillow. She felt Faith’s tears on her neck and sobbed in pain. Her lover was whispering now.   
  
“… Since the day of our meeting I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You’ve become the center of my life, you know? In jail, in dreams … there was always and only you. Do you understand that?”  
  
Buffy shivered and continued to move against the fingers inside her searching for pleasure. An immense sadness was filling her heard.  
  
“Faith …” she sobbed.  
  
Like a child, without restraining herself.   
  
She was there, at the point of no return. At the height of passion that – she knew – would inevitably lead to ending and sorrow. And, she knew, she would have keep on loving.   
  
She would have loved Faith to death, the same way she loved Angel and Spike and all her friends and her family. She would have loved a consuming, painful and devastating love. She would have loved without boundaries. Forever.   
  
Aware of her own destiny the Slayer stopped struggling and sighed, offering herself passively, closing her eyes full of tears.  
  
Faith’s breath changed. It became faster, agitated. Her soft hair fell on Buffy’s face and her hands roamed her body incessantly. Suddenly Buffy realized that she was free. The handcuffs were gone and she was in a tight, comforting hug, against her miserable lover who was calling and rocking her.  
  
She felt helpless and happy. In a fictitious place.  
  
“Buffy … Buffy … listen to me …”  
  
She regained focus in a few seconds and pulled away from Faith violently. She searched from some space and sat next to the nightstand. In the primrose light of the lamp she was the red marks on her wrists, the blood slowly flowing from the scratches. She clenched her teeth.  
  
Faith attempted to get close her she turned away.  
  
“Say you’re sorry and I’ll kill you,” she murmured before going into the bathroom.  
  



	4. 3

  
The night air was cooled by a gentle breeze that carried the smell of the river, the scent of exotic fruits and full rice paddies.  
  
Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to recall other smells, remote in her memory, wet and cool. Green grass and marble slabs. The demon she was facing had to interpret her gesture a sign of fatigue. Without hesitation he launched himself in a violent frontal attack.  
  
“Here we are!”   
  
The Slayer stopped his first punch. She squeezed his right arm and twisted it. The demon counterattacked and she responded with strong kicks. She hit him with precision along the abdomen and the throat, to wear him down and make him pant for oxygen. Gradually she subtracted space to her opponent and tried to strike the decisive physical attack. Cornered, the demon kicked and tried to hit her with his shoulders. He was successful.  
  
Buffy didn’t lose concentration. If her opponent was reacting that bad it was because she was winning. It was time to kill him. With an inhuman scream the demon pushed once more against her in an attempt of knock her down. Buffy imposed herself by wounding him in the head. Immediately she hit the injury again and brought death on her victim. The corpse – still warm, heavy and animal-like – fell into her arms. She threw it in the grass.   
  
Somebody applauded.  
  
“Great technique, ma’am! Truly admirable!”  
  
Buffy smiled at the young slayer who was praising her. “Thank you, Amm. And you can call me Buffy, you know,” she pointed out, approaching the girls who followed on patrol.  
  
It was a small habit of her general days: organize weekly patrol to provide useful demonstrations and train the youngest to the violence.   
  
During her months in Asia, Buffy had the opportunity to intensify the practice, to prevent impending apocalypses but also moved by the emotional bond she established with the girls. Some of them had become friends; other, like Amm, favorite students. The separation from them wouldn’t get to be very easy.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” was Amm’s the amused reply.  
  
Buffy laughed and slightly slapped her shoulder. Softened by affection, she stroked Jun’s hair, who looked like teenage Dawn.  
  
Faith was examining her unexpected gestures of love. She grinned at the slayers who dragged her and started pinching and tickling her.  
  
“I’m going to miss your flattery, you know?” Buffy said with a gorgeous smile.  
  
Only Faith noticed the dark glow that obscured her gaze for a second. The slight tremor that shook her fingers.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _“They’ll die.”_  
  
The cicadas’ songs resounded in the bedroom with the softest music of Mekong's murky water and the thrill of rice plants shaken by the wind.  
  
Buffy was lying in bed. Tired from the exhausting heat, curled in a ball like a frightened child. Faith was lying next to her without touching her.  
  
“They will die,” Buffy softly repeated.  
  
She was crying, Faith knew it but she wouldn’t dare lend a hand to reassure her grieving partner.  
  
“You don’t know that,” she simply said.   
  
“Oh but I do. They’ll die young. Some of them wouldn’t even reach their twenties.”  
  
Faith looked at her shadowy, bony silhouette. She admired the reflection of the pale moonlight on Buffy’s slim hips, on her ankles. She closed her eyes.  
  
“You’re here,” she said. “And you’ve faced your apocalypses. You fought against a god, against a powerful vampire, against a giant monster … and you won. Always.”  
  
 _“I died,”_ was the dryly reply. “Twice. And if I’m still here it’s all because of Willow and her magic. These girls will never have someone who take them back.”  
  
“They’re not alone, though,”  
  
“How?”  
  
“When _we_ … when _you_ were called you were unique and alone. These young slayers? They can help each other. They’ve been trained and they can support themselves into the war. That’s something.”  
  
“It’ll be war and they would suffer anyway.”  
  
Faith sighed. She wanted a cigarette.  
  
“You …”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing,” Buffy muttered turning to face her. She lightly caressed her lover before closing her eyes.  
  
“Are you still angry?” Faith asked.  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For what happened when …”  
  
Buffy tensed and hardened her expression. “Don’t say it,” she warned.  
  
Faith didn’t obey. “You almost fainted in my arms,” she sighed, worried.   
  
Buffy got up from the bed. “Why are you doing this?” She snapped while nervously fixing her hair. She cleaned her wet eyes with a hand.  
  
“What I just did?” Faith asked.  
  
“Nothing. Just stop.”  
  
Faith sat down ready for the fight. “At least tell me what I did wrong!”  
  
“Your bags are ready for tomorrow? I think I lost my pink sweater. Maybe you took it.”  
  
“Shit, B! Don’t change the subject!”  
  
“I won’t talk about this now,” Buffy said, tossing away the blouse she was wearing. “Forget everything, please.”  
  
Faith grabbed the sheets, livid with rage. “It’s so simple for you, right? When things are satisfactory you press a finger on the reset button and delete everything!”  
  
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Buffy replied trying to tame her hair.  
  
Faith grinned thinking about the next nasty move. Buffy stopped her in time.  
  
 _“It’s my fault,”_ she muttered. “You didn’t do anything. It’s all my fault and I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

 

 

 


	5. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just translated. Unbetaed.

 

On the hot airstrip a gentle breeze was blowing. The air seemed animate with the bustling noise of the faraway city. With their travel bags on, Faith and Buffy were going to their private jet, bright and white like a mirage, to coming back to the cold West they didn’t miss.

The young slayers were gathered near the jet to greet their teachers one last time, to tell them words of gratitude and share gifts. Tears.

Neither Faith nor Buffy cried in front of them. They were allowed to weep for death or defeat – _they knew it_ – They were allowed to weep alone. The girls were too young and they needed protection.

 

 

 

 

 

A few minutes after the takeoff, Buffy was already asleep.

Faith sighed, bored, thinking about the quantity of time she had to spend in silence, walking down the corridor, sifting through magazines and being pissed for the small amount of alcohol in the plane.

Buffy was sleeping quietly, won by a sudden fatigue.

Biting her lip to suppress the need for a cigarette, Faith sat down in front of her. She stared at her lover for a long moment. Buffy so soft and pale in her dreams. She watched the golden reflection of the sun in her hair, the small hands clasped in her lap like in a prayer. She looked at the crucifix around her neck and the shiny earrings, two small pairs, that she often wore.

Faith remembered her happy smile along the banks of Mekong and the sparkling glow on her damp hair waving in the wind. The salty taste of her lips. Her small feet, like those of an Asian girl, moving on the wooden floor. The silky dress revealing the shape of her hips. The way her body reclined on the bed, on the grass, and the breath that moved her breasts.

The sweetest scent to forget.

 

 

 

 

Buffy’s eyes were filled with tears as she descended the jet and ran into Giles’ arms. They were all waiting for her: Giles, Dawn, Xander, Willow and Kennedy. Faith smiled and hugged Dawn, stroking her long hair in a gesture she learned from Buffy.

Her lover was calling her sister, “I missed you so much … so much!”  
Buffy exclaimed between broken sobs and a laugh. “So much,” she told Dawn.

“Speak for yourself,” was the sassy reply. Dawn was crying too.

Buffy kissed her cheek and buried her nose in the crotch of her sister’s neck.

“Well … it’s a very touching meeting,” Giles said, pulling off the eyeglasses to clean to contain his reaction.

“It’s the most wonderful moment in my life!” Xander said. “No, wait …even if it’s not it enters right away in the top five.”

Willow grinned, amused. “Next to that time when we all wanted to jump on you for the sex, right?”

“Oh well …”

Buffy laughed. “I definitely missed you guys!” she repeated. “You’re my family.”

Faith smiled and felt Giles’ light hand on her shoulder. She turned, biting her lips, making an awkward nod to the Watcher who was looking  
at her with tenderness.

“I’m glad to see you. Both.” He said quietly.

Faith nodded again, unable to break the tension with a lame joke. Giles’ hand was staying on her shoulder.

 

 

 

 

They walked home laughing and occasionally shouting. Buffy seemed all about having fun and Willow’s fizzling, playful spells, created to annoy her, made her laugh more. The apartment she bought for her friend was at the fifth floor. The elevator was broken. On the stairs they played some kind of contest and Xander and Buffy arrived last. They were hugging.

Once inside, Buffy proved how hard she suffered the separation from her family of choice by showing them more affection.

Faith stared at the bright blush on her face. Everything about her was glowing. Faith felt a deep sense of gratitude, something she once believed was impossible to feel for her. Buffy’s happiness, for some kind of reason, was making her own contentment.

After the festive toasts in the new kitchen, Faith reached the bedroom she was supposed to share with Buffy and sat down on the mattress.

The walls were still blank white and the closets still empty.

She didn’t feel any scent in the air, nor the incomprehensible buzz of the crowd, the sizzling taste of fried rice.

The Slayer caressed the white sheets, the untouched bed. She clutched the soft fabric between her fingers and twisted it to test its consistency.

The sheets were so white and clean.

Alone, Faith wept.


	6. 5

  
  
Faith opened her eyes and took a deep breath. The sheets were faintly smelling of apricot. She squeezed them.  
  
Buffy was already out, she couldn’t feel her presence beside her. Turning around the Slayer sleepily glanced at the alarm: 5 p.m. It was too early for her and she already felt the boredom of waiting to kill something.  
  
Standing up, she gave one last look to the bedroom, essential and bright as Buffy desired. She remembered an old dream from the coma and shivered, mentally kicking herself for let the memories flow.  
  
She caressed the sheets and made the bed.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Their new apartment was big and always cold somehow. Silent. Buffy has been excited to express her taste in artsy furniture and Faith was more than happy to not have to think about stuff like that. She didn’t understand the half of it and she completely trusted her elegant partner.  
  
Pensive, the Slayer went into the kitchen. She sat next to the stove, drank some orange juice from the box and toyed with a chair.  
  
Buffy had graced the walls with her favorite shots. Everywhere Faith could see smiling faces of Scoobies, the family of choice she loved and protected above everything else. More rarely couple portraits.  
  
Hesitantly Faith studied a pair of photos. She remembered the occasion in which they were taken. As soon as they arrived in Vietnam, she and Buffy lost themselves. In asking directions they kind of started a brawl – _Faith started a brawl, as always_ – and they had to run in some forgotten country roads. Filled with mud from head to toe, they reached a village and, in a stupid attempt of fun, Faith pushed Buffy inside a photo studio to capture the glorious and sticky moment. She tried to refuse.  
  
Buffy was always tense during their first months as unlikely couple. Every occasion seemed to fuel her ability to detach herself and Faith waited for the end with patience and fear.  
  
Persuaded by her lover, Buffy finally got into the studio and asked for a set of portraits. Sitting on Faith’s lap, as the photographer asked, she suddenly burst out laughing. She leaned for a breathless kiss and captured her lover in a cheerful embrace. Even Faith found a reason to laugh.  
  
“The first happy memory,” Faith muttered, caressing the frame that protected Buffy’s smile.  
  
She almost could feel the warmth of her arms and the mud in her hair.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sighing with fatigue, Buffy closed the door and took off her coat and scarf. “I’m back,” she said out loud.  
  
The training session with the girls had been more exhausting than usual, both physically and emotionally. She wanted to take an hot bath and just rest. Patrol was out of question, for once.  
  
“Faith!” she called. Her lover was at home, she felt it, but she wasn’t answering. “Faith?” Buffy repeated.  
  
A burning smell caught her attention. Buffy walked into the kitchen and took a quick look of the stove. Everything was off. Then she went into the terrace.  
  
“You’re here,”  
  
Faith was sitting on the snow-white floor. She was silently watching a column of smoke raising slowly into the air.  
  
“You made me worry,” Buffy added. “What … what are you doing?”  
  
“I didn’t mean to worry you,” Faith muttered, turning around. Behind her there was a pile of wooden dolls, a brazier for fire spells and a bottle of vodka.  
  
“Is this magic?” Buffy asked. “Did Willow called you?”  
  
Faith smiled and showed her a little man made of wood, like a toy for primeval children. “It’s magic without magic. I just invented this thing.”  
  
“In what way? What are those?”  
  
“ _Symbols_ ,” Faith said, scrutinizing one. “I wanted to … you know, I was bored and I thought about you, as always. I thought about how nice it would be to make you happy and erase everything that makes you suffer.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“This tiny dude here, with the woody head, is Buffy’s pain,” Faith said thoughtfully. “ _Can I burn it?”_ she asked herself throwing the toy into the fire.  
  
The flame brightened for a second. The smoke oscillated in the wind.  
  
“And all your liabilities that you don’t tell me about, all the scars and tears ... Can I burn them as well? I would like to see Angel and Spike burn and even the ones you love. I would like to be your only fire.”  
  
“Enough, Faith!”  
  
“Because I love you so fucking much, B. So much. You are the most ...”  
  
“Enough.” Buffy repeated, clenching her fists. She almost missed her breath and swallowed, fighting back tears.  
  
“You're the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” Faith softly said. “You’re bright and shining like the sun and you do things to me that I can’t express. You are the light of my eyes. Accept me, please.”  
  
Buffy shook her head, trembling. She put her hand above her heart and cried.  
  
Faith stepped forward without getting up from the floor that blackened her knees. She looked up and touched her lover’s hips and her legs covered in a long black dress. “I wish you’d tried that feeling …”  
  
“Stop it!” Buffy cried, letting herself be touched. “How can you not understand? I’m fine at last! I’m fine with you.”  
  
Faith hesitated, surprised.  
  
“Did you really expect me to say the opposite?”  
  
“I …”  
  
“You have to just stop provoking me! I’m not a stupid test! _I feel what you feel._ I do. And it makes me so damn exhausted. If I had to fight you again ... I consumed my heart so much, Faith. So much. _There’s no part of me that hasn’t love_ and I’m still collecting the pieces.”  
  
“Buffy, I’sorry … I’m sorry,” Faith repeated. In tears. Finally aware.  
  
“I can’t be all yours. I can’t satisfy your need to possess me. Not ever. But I chose to be with you, you know? I did it and I’m still choosing it. So, please, stop burning the pieces of my heart. Too many people have already done it and what it’s left bleeding is me,” she confessed, helplessly falling on her knees.  
  
“Buffy, Buffy ... It’s okay. It’s all fine. I understand now. It’s _perfect_ just like that.”  
  
Buffy brushed her wet face against Faith’s and wept on her lips. “Faith, Faith …” she chanted, squeezing her lover hard enough to hurt. Strong like a slayer.  
  
Faith hugged her and buried her face in her blond hair, into the tender crook of her neck. Buffy was kissing her cheeks and then her warm mouth.  
  
Faith untied her black dress, her bra and caressed her shuddering shoulders. Clinging on Buffy while she embraced her back. Strongly, energetically.  
  
Like a slayer.  



	7. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation from the Italian. Unbetaed.

Buffy’s voice was reduced to a whisper. A shaky breath between gasps.  
  
Faith was looking at her through a sea of black curls. She was caressing her, gently ruffling her sweaty hair and touching her forehead marked by kisses. Close to Buffy, in a endless embrace, she was listening to her lover’s heartbeat.   
  
Buffy didn’t seem able to let her go. With her legs entwined around Faith’s waist she was inexorably pushing for a complete, indissoluble union.  
  
The brave and strong Slayer, the leader. _Just the woman_. Faith could feel that; Buffy was giving herself without saving anything.   
  
In a kiss there was the instinct of protection and the unforgotten love for the girl alone in the night. In a kiss the sorrowful passion, the consolation for the dark days of coma and prison. In a kiss the intimacy with her sister Slayer. Companion, friend, _eros_ incarnate.   
  
Faith felt it in every thrill that shook Buffy’s body.   
  
She felt it, bending down to kiss her swollen lips.  
  
“Love,” she murmured, tensing her arms to see the naked body beneath her. “You’re beautiful.”  
  
Buffy smiled. Then brushed her nose against Faith’s. “So are you.”  
  
“You more,” Faith replied, allowing herself sentimentality.  
  
Buffy laughed and voluptuously hugged her, burying her face on her neck.  
  
“Do you miss it?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The river, the heat …” Buffy said softly against her hair. “Living in some place different.”  
  
“I don’t …”  
  
“Don’t lie to me.”  
  
“Yes,” she replied, her eyes softened by nostalgia. “I miss it, but now it doesn’t matter anymore.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Faith didn’t answer. She brushed her pouting lover’s lips. “Do you?”  
  
“I miss the girls,” Buffy admitted. “I was fond of those little troublemakers.”  
  
“You can see them whenever you want,”  
  
“It’s not the same. And they couldn’t be there anymore …”  
  
“B …”  
  
“They could die. You know that.”  
  
Faith sighed and lay down between the pillows, embracing Buffy’s bony and strong body. “They are less fragile and naïve than you think,”  
  
“Said the woman who sent them after a master demon without telling them anything!”  
  
“They had to learn from practice, B. You and I … we weren’t that aware …”  
  
“There was Giles. And Willow. We were much more prepared to …”  
  
“… get our asses kicked, yeah,” Faith joked.  
  
Buffy giggled and kissed her on the chin.  
  
“Look at us. We seem two mother discussing over the children’s education.”  
  
“But we are, I guess. A bit.”  
  
“I don’t know. Sometimes it seems that I did a great thing. I gave power to these girls and they are all like … in bloom, I would say. Some of them had become stronger, better. Other times it seem all crazy. I wonder if was really necessary to push them in the constant struggle for humanity’s survival. I realized something about changing the world: once you do it, the world is really different.”  
  
“But that isn’t always a bad thing. We achieved outstanding goals. What you did was lie … whoa! An epic revolution. The biggest _lesbo-feminist kinda jump_ forward of all the time. You should be proud.”  
  
Buffy laughed again. “If you put it that way …”  
  
“I do. Kiss me, girl.”  
  
Buffy reached out for Faith and gave her a soft kiss on her lips. The she stared intently in her dark eyes.  
  
“You know,” Faith began. “I wasn’t the greatest slayer of history myself. I screwed up. I helped the bad guys,”  
  
“You’re talking about a lifetime ago …”  
  
“The point is: what would I do? Would have been better or worse without power? I don’t know, of course. Maybe I would have met a regular guy and became mother and wife and all that crap … sometimes, though, I really think that being a slayer is what saved me in the end. It made me special, for sure. But, I mean, I also knew people … I knew Angel and he was in a messed place with all the history of soul and guilt. But he made me realize that I wasn’t that lost. I helped in saving the world. _I’ve known you_.”  
  
Buffy felt Faith’s arms carefully stretching between the pillows. She took a deep breath and looked at her lover’s shadowy face.  
  
“I’ve known you,” Faith repeated, her voice hoarser. “And without mentioning the sexy implications and how much I love you well trained ass …”  
  
“Faith!”  
  
“What? Like you don’t love that,” Faith grinned.  
  
Buffy playfully pinched her hips.  
  
“As I was saying,” Faith continued. “Without mentioning the great sex, working with you makes me feel really useful. Helping these fifteen girls who wake up a morning and suddenly are able to punch and destroy walls … maybe this is really my destiny.”  
  
Buffy smiled. “Come here,” she muttered.  
  
She took her lover’s face and covered it with kisses. She clung to Faith, tying her bodies in a passionate embrace.  
  
Faith was hot and she was smelling like roses and all kinds of forbidden spices.  
  



	8. ~ Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translated from the Italian. Unbetaed. 
> 
> Final quote from Sappho.

  
  
  
  
  
“So you chose to stay.”  
  
Buffy smiled at Giles and took his hand. “Yes. To be honest we really miss the girls. Like a lot. The kind of miss where you want to take a plane every night just to say goodnight in person, but … this is our home and we have another mission to face. So we will stay. Plus, here we have all of you.”  
  
The Watcher nodded sympathetically and poured himself another cup of tea. The other Scoobies were at the market to buy supplies and a new Christmas tree. Soon the quiet living room wouldn’t be so quiet. Better to enjoy the peace and Buffy’s presence.  
  
“I’ll be honest too,” he said. “I’m delighted that you’ve chosen that.”  
  
Buffy smiled again. Giles felt his heart filled with joy. Something about the girl he loved so much was shining with a new light. Of life and love.  
  
“I’ve also noticed one thing,” he continued. “You speak in the plural, Buffy.”  
  
The Slayer blushed and shook her head. “Well …”  
  
“It’s a good thing, isn’t?”  
  
“Yes, it’s really good,” she said after a thoughtful pause.  
  
“I’m happy for you.”  
  
“Thank you, Giles.”  
  
Buffy stood up, resolute. “Now I’m going to see what my better half is doing … wow. It’s really strange to say it at loud. My sweetie. But not as strange as young student-soldiers fighting for a secret military organization or Snyder.”  
  
Giles laughed.  
  
His girl was definitely back.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Faith was in the kitchen. She was wearing a sweater of the same color of her hair and dealing with potatoes for the salad and the roast.  
  
Buffy chuckled.  
  
“Don’t make that face, B,” Faith mumbled without looking up.  
  
The Slayer smiled leaning against the door. Amazed. “What face am I doing?”  
  
“I don’t see you but I know you,” her lover replied without losing her focus.  
  
Buffy slowly walked down the room and made her turn around. “Look at me then.”  
  
Faith went from a sigh to a grin. In Buffy’s eyes she could see the glow of a deep, dark power warmed by something so incredibly human that only belonged to her. Soft skin wrapped in a golden and white sweater and a feminine fruity scent.  
  
“You’re so busy!” Buffy whined playfully.  
  
“Dawn asked me,” she muttered. “She’s going to take some bread and other things. We won’t get out of this room alive without her consent.”  
  
Buffy laughed, pulling Faith towards her. “I guess that when she’ll come back she would give me a task too.”  
  
“Your guess is correct.”  
  
Lazily Buffy pressed herself against Faith’s back. “Look at you. All so messy …” she murmured brushing her rebel curls. “Let me help you fix your hair.”  
  
Faith stood still like a doll, enjoying Buffy’s hands on her neck.  
  
“That’s it.” Buffy muttered perfecting a low ponytail.  
  
Faith thanked her with a kiss and went back to the peeling of potatoes. Buffy giggled and buried her face into her sweater.  
  
“What are you laughing about now?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You seem a busy wife.”  
  
“Careful with what you say, sweetheart. I’m still up to kick your ass.”  
  
“You’re so mean!” Buffy joked, placing a small box next to the potatoes.  
  
Faith looked puzzled. “What?”  
  
“They are for you.”  
  
The dark Slayer opened the box and saw a pair of emerald earrings. Tiny and precious. “Is it my gift?” she asked.  
  
“No, your gift will go under the tree like everything else,” Buffy replied. “I saw these after I bought it. I was undecided whether to take them with rubies. You look so good in red. But … I can take the rubies another time. On Valentine’s day, maybe. Or on your birthday.”  
  
Speechless, Faith turned to look at her. “So … not my Christmas present, right?”  
  
“No. But you can think that they are, if it makes you feel better!”  
  
“B, don’t try to tease me now because …”  
  
“I guess I don’t need a special reason to buy something nice to my girlfriend,” Buffy said slowly.  
  
Faith couldn’t help but blushing. She bowed her head trying to hide her emotion. She wasn’t used to show that. Emotion.  
  
Buffy closed her eyes and hugged energetically. “You’re so stupid, my love,” she declared in her own sentimental way.  
  
Faith pouted. “You know,” she began seductively. “Since you love me so much, you could give me a hand with these …”  
  
 _“Don’t push it_ , Lehane.”  
  
  
  
  
 _Bittersweet uncontrollable creature_  



End file.
